How will GOP solve fiscal cliff riddle?

Republicans know they’re going to have to budge on revenues in the looming debt and spending debate. The question is when to blink.

The problem: Revenue increases, which could solve the fiscal cliff riddle this fall, are also their best bargaining chip for an even bigger fight to overhaul the Tax Code expected next year. GOP lawmakers — especially those on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee — say tax increases should happen only as part of a fundamental Tax Code rewrite that also lowers marginal tax rates, a policy dream that won’t be realized until next year at the earliest.

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Boehner on fiscal cliff

PHOTOS: Fiscal cliff's key players

So with 53 days left until the U.S. plunges off the fiscal cliff, House Speaker John Boehner will have to decide whether to sacrifice revenue earlier than he and other Republicans had hoped — and right now, he’s not saying.

“The whole question is how you get the revenue,” Illinois Rep. Peter Roskam told POLITICO.

Fresh off reelection victories, the Obama administration and Senate Democrats are insisting that Congress agree to revenue as part of a year-end package that saves the Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class and averts $109 billion in scheduled spending cuts.

Boehner jump-started the so-called fiscal cliff talks earlier this week with a speech that acknowledged revenue as a political necessity. And while he pushed the type of fundamental tax reform that was last achieved in 1986, the speaker didn’t say whether he’d put taxes on the table before that.

“For purposes of forging a bipartisan agreement that begins to solve the problem, we’re will to accept new revenue, under the right conditions,” Boehner said Wednesday. “What matters is where the increased revenue comes from and what type of reform comes with it.”

Boehner has said previously that he doesn’t think a lot can be accomplished during the lame-duck session.

Ways and Means Republicans are more direct.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Texas Rep. Kevin Brady said when asked whether the GOP would accept a year-end deal that includes revenue to get around the fiscal cliff.

If Republicans are going to agree to revenue increases, that should happen as part of a thoughtful process led by the Ways and Means panel, according to Rep. Diane Black. The Tennessee Republican said that type of process isn’t possible during a rushed lame-duck session when lawmakers have to sort through a jam-packed to-do list.

“I don’t believe that you should be doing those kinds of things,” Black told POLITICO. “They should be done through committee, transparently and in a period of time when it’s a calm atmosphere instead of a lame duck. That’s not the best place to set policy, especially very important policy such as tax reform.”

Many Republicans, including Roskam, say the revenue that could come from economic growth, and “loophole” closing is a piece of the comprehensive tax reform puzzle, not a down payment on some promise of future action. For them, a bridge to tax reform is a House-passed bill to extend all of the current rates and mandate a rewrite before the end of 2013.

Readers' Comments (122)

Give the Democrats everything they demand. There is no reason to believe that Americans will understand the fallacy of ever increasing debt, regulations, taxing and spending until it has gone so far that we fall off the cliff, roll down the embankment, fall into the river, get swept downstream, pinned against a rock, under water, where we suffocate and die.

The GOP will solve this like they solve everything. They'll let the democrats fix it and then take credit for it all. They haven't had an original idea in 30 years. They're old and scared and they shot their wad. Time to sit down and admit they're dead.

Seems the dems have been cleaning up the Reps messes long enough. Raygun and the Bush's gave us $13 trillion in debt and not a single idea how to fix it. Republicants are done. They just don't know they're extinct.

Tax increases for the richest Americans are already written into law. Nothing has to be passed to sustain that. The issue is that those increases happen to apply to everyone else as well. But if the Senate passes a bill that blocks those tax increases for everyone else, are the Republicans going to vote against it? Are they going to play their obstructionist game to let taxes go up?

Boehner has this idea that we should pass an intermediate bill and then do a full revision of the tax code. That doesn't work. We've already seen repeated attempts to pass the ball forward. Congress has failed, over and over again, to pick the ball back up. Even when they deliberately wrote themselves into a corner (i.e. military spending cuts) so they would be forced to pick it back up, they failed to get it together. Who honestly believes this will be any different?

Obama ran on the "tax the rich" platform and won. Polls consistently show most people agree with that policy (and look what happened to Republicans ignoring the polls). It's time for congress to play ball. Chris Christie scored lots of points showing bipartisanship in times of crisis, and he's currently more popular than any Republican out there.

Obama ran on the "tax the rich" platform and won. Polls consistently show most people agree with that policy (and look what happened to Republicans ignoring the polls). It's time for congress to play ball. Chris Christie scored lots of points showing bipartisanship in times of crisis, and he's currently more popular than any Republican out there.

Everything that was predicted by the Rep. in 2008 that would happen if Obama got elected all came true. massive jobs were lost.. record debt occured, on and on.. and yet he brainwashed his followers to elect him again and the predictions will more than likely come true again..You can't fix stupid

Everything that was predicted by the Rep. in 2008 that would happen if Obama got elected all came true. massive jobs were lost.. record debt occured, on and on.. and yet he brainwashed his followers to elect him again and the predictions will more than likely come true again..You can't fix stupid

Seems the dems have been cleaning up the Reps messes long enough. Raygun and the Bush's gave us $13 trillion in debt

Actually, Democrats controlled the House and Senate when Reagan was President, and they promised him 3 dollars in spending cuts for each dollar of new taxes............

Like all their other promises, it was all lies........

You know, like this President's promise of 8 million new jobs, cutting the budget in half, not running for re-election if he didn't turn the economy around, not to take out side money, transparency. etc., etc., etc.

But you keep buying into those lies, and believing they're true..........

Everything that was predicted by the Rep. in 2008 that would happen if Obama got elected all came true. massive jobs were lost.. record debt occured, on and on.. and yet he brainwashed his followers to elect him again and the predictions will more than likely come true again..You can't fix stupid

Boehner jump-started the so-called fiscal cliff talks earlier this week with a speech that acknowledged revenue as a political necessity. And while he pushed the type of fundamental tax reform that was last achieved in 1986, the speaker didn’t say whether he’d put taxes on the table before that.

OK..............it's a start.

Represents "some" movement....which is always the first step

I'm sure he almost choked when he mouthed the word "Revenue"...............which we all know is code for tax.